Botany
· Coarse, erect, branched, smooth or slightly hairy shrub or short-lived shrub, 0.5 to 2 m high.
· Leaves: single, ovate to oblong-ovate, 9 to 18 cm long, with inequilateral base, pointed tip and irregularly and shallowly lobed margins.
· Flowers: ovary large, white or nearly purple, axillary and solitary. Calyx green, about 6 cm long, cleft at the apex and divided into linear teeth, cylindric. Corolla white, about 15 cm long and the mouth about 8 cm in diameter, trumpet-shaped when fully opened. Stamens 5, stigma 2-fid.
· Fruits: rounded capsules, green, about 3.5 cm in diameter and covered with stout, short spines, dehiscing at the apex when ripe forming an irregular suture.
· Seeds numerous, closely packed, nearly smooth and brown.

Distribution
Found in open wastelands throughout the settled areas in the Philippines
Also, cultivated also for ornamental purposes.

Parts utilized
Leaves, seeds and flowers.
Collect newly opened flowers and sun-dry.

Constituents
Flowers - Scopolamine, 0.5%; hyoscyamine, 0.04%; atropine, 0.01%.

Drug Characteristics and Pharmacological Effects
Bitter tasting.
Antitussive, antiasthmatic and analgesic.
Plant as a whole has narcotic and antispasmodic properties.
For asthma, leaves and seeds are smoked like cigarettes.
The powdered seeds are used for cold symptoms and for excessive sneezing associated with hay fever.
Seeds pounded in oil are used as embrocation in rheumatism.

Uses
· Asthma: get drug materials, cut into slices and mix with equal quantity of tobacco and roll into a cigarette and smoke 2 to 3 times a day.
· Muscle pains and cramps due to rheumatism: get drug, boil and obtain a concentrated decoction. Wash the painful parts with the warm decoction.
· Gastric pain: use 0.3 gm of dried material in decoction.
· Sprains, contusions, snakebites, piles: use pounded fresh leaves and apply over afflicted areas.
· Severe cold accompanied by excessive sneezing similar to hay fever symptoms: use powdered seeds (0.1 gm) in pills or loose.
· Rheumatism: use pounded seeds prepared into an oil embrocation.
· Psoriasis: use the oil prepared by boiling Datura seeds with sesame (linga) oil in an alkaline water made from ashes of gabi. For the preparation of the alkaline water, simply dissolve the white ashes of gabi in water.

Availabilityvailability
Wild-crafted.